IOF looking for temporary recruits through social media amid shortage
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The Israeli occupation forces are resorting to social media platforms to try and recruit settlers to join the IOF amid a steep shortage of forces.
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Israeli soldiers drive a tank near the Gaza Strip, in southern occupied Palestine, June 5, 2024. (AP)
Although there are half a million Israeli settlers registered for reserve duty in the Israeli occupation forces, recent reports from Israeli media reveal that only 3% of Israelis have actively served in the reserves since the onset of the war on Gaza.
The Israeli military has refrained from providing detailed reserve enrollment statistics, citing "information security" concerns. However, military officials acknowledged the exhaustion among reserve soldiers.
A small contingent of the reserve soldiers is bearing the brunt of the war from Gaza to the North at the front with Lebanon, especially as the immense pressures and significant losses have exacerbated the challenge of maintaining adequate manpower over a protracted period.
In response to the situation, the Israeli regime approved a decision allowing the IOF to increase the number of reserve troops to 350,000, a measure set to remain in effect until the end of August. Sources from the Security Ministry described this increase as a routine adjustment in combat formations.
Internal groups of reserve soldiers issued a call earlier in the week to recruit additional reservists for a brigade facing shortages in the Netzarim area of Gaza. They are seeking volunteers for a one-month term. Another battalion with a shortfall of reserve soldiers issued a recruitment call for truck drivers to support operational activities in the North.
This is not the first instance where the Israeli forces resorted to social media to recruit troops, as Israeli media previously reported that military officials had turned to social media platforms a few weeks ago for recruiting.
All to blame on political leaders
Israeli Reserve Major General and military analyst Yitzhak Brik said Friday in an op-ed for the Jerusalem Post that the Israeli occupation forces would be met with failure in their war with Hamas, and they will certainly meet the same fate in a war against Hezbollah.
Brik stressed that the IOF couldn't beat either Resistance faction, not because they do not seek victory, but simply because they can not emerge victorious, citing the "small and weak" army that has "no surplus of forces."
"Every day the war continues, our situation worsens," he said, decrying that both the IOF and the Israeli occupation in and of itself were heading toward internal collapse.
Brik had no one else but the war cabinet to blame for this, seeing as they are responsible for the management of the Israeli entity at such times, condemning the body by saying that its members had "only one daily goal", which was to continue the war no matter the cost so long as it safeguards their political positions.
"They must be stopped. They are leading the people of Israel like sheep to the slaughter," he said, reiterating that they did not care about the Israeli occupation itself but rather their own ranks within it.
The Israeli brigadier general underlined that he had envisioned all that is happening in the invasion of Rafah before it happened, highlighting that "Israel" is "losing control of the world's nations" in a way the Israelis had never known, including their ties with Egypt.
The Israeli occupation "needs to stop the destruction and immediately distance themselves from these warmongers who are leading us astray."
